


Christmas Cheer

by feeisamarshmallow



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas, F/M, Season 3 Era, unrequited (????) feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28181415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feeisamarshmallow/pseuds/feeisamarshmallow
Summary: Christmas Eve 2006. Veronica shows up at Eli's apartment door with cookies.
Relationships: Veronica Mars/Eli "Weevil" Navarro
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Christmas Cheer

**Author's Note:**

> A quick, unbeta'd Christmas fic. All mistakes are my own :) Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, all <3

"Why are you here Veronica?" Eli opens his front door, looking suspicious. Veronica is standing on his doorstep wearing a tight red shirt and jeans, her hair slightly curled and longer than he's ever seen it. She looks gorgeous, but Eli's really not in the mood for an interrogation. Not tonight of all nights.

"To spread Christmas cheer?" Veronica tilts her head. 

"I can't say cheerful is how I would usually describe you. A pain in my ass on the other hand..." Weevil says, but her stupid head tilt has gotten to him and so he steps to one side and Veronica enters his apartment. 

"C'mon Weevil...what were your other holiday plans? Beer and...Call of Duty?" She gestures to the half-filled Corona on the coffee table and the paused game on the TV. 

"I was having a perfectly fine night before you showed up. It's Christmas Eve. I'm off duty and I promise I didn't commit any crimes today. " He crosses his arms, but despite himself his tone is light. It's been a shitty year for him, and it's shaping up to be a shitty Christmas, and it's so easy to fall back into the back-and-forth banter of their relationship. 

"Look, I brought cookies." Veronica nods towards the tupperware container in her hand. "I won't even stay if you don't want me to." 

Weevil shrugs. He can never resist Veronica for long. "You drove all the way here, least I can do is offer you a beer." 

"I'm surprised you're not working," Veronica says. 

"We finished early. All the students have to be out of the dorms by noon." Weevil walks through the open doorway into the kitchenette and retrieves a beer for Veronica. 

There's a beat of silence, then Weevil speaks again. 

"I'm surprised you're not spending Christmas Eve with the Sheriff," he says as he settles down on the couch. And he really is. He figured no one, not even his own family, was going to check in with him tonight. He's still not sure why she's here, and even though her visit seems innocent, there's a part of him that's waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to need a favour, or to start interrogating him out of nowhere. 

"He is working. Being the Sheriff never ends, I guess," Veronica follows him. Eli immediately notices that she sits a little closer than is strictly necessary, but still far enough away to maintain plausible deniability, and then hates that he picked up on that. He's sure Veronica doesn't feel that way about him—or rather that maybe she does but she'll never be interested in acting on it. But somehow that still doesn't put an end to the torch he's forever carrying for her. The dumb schoolboy crush he can't seem to get rid off. 

"Wallace? Mac?" He deflects. _Logan?_ he thinks but doesn't say. Surely he wasn't her first choice. Surely she didn't come over just to hang out.

"Since when do you care about Wallace?" Veronica turns to look at him. Her eyes are so blue, and so intense.

"Just trying to make conversation, V." He grabs the remote and switches off the video game, happy to give his hands something to do.

"Wallace and Mac are with their families celebrating on this splendid holiday," she says with a bite of sarcasm. 

"There's the cheerfulness you were talking about, my mistake." 

"And don't you forget it." She holds out her beer towards him to punctuate her statement before taking a drink. 

"I guess that just leaves us," he says, allowing himself a bit of boldness, and conspicuously leaving out Logan. 

"Hence the cookies." 

"Hence the cookies." He nods and grabs one from the container sitting on the coffee table. If nothing else, he's happy to eat her Christmas baking. 

He flips channels until they find a Christmas movie. They sit for a while, watching in silence and eating her cookies. 

"How come Christmas kinda sucks when you get older?" Veronica finally breaks the silence, pulling her knees up to her chest and keeping her eyes trained on the TV. 

Her question catches Eli off-guard. Veronica so rarely lets herself seem vulnerable. For the first time, he's wondering if her ulterior motive was really just that she needed someone to talk to tonight. It had been a shitty year for him, but it hadn't been an easy year for Veronica either. 

"I guess because we got older," he finally says, quietly. 

"Hm." Veronica takes another sip of her beer in silence. 

Suddenly, all of his frustration over his unrequited crush seems unimportant. Veronica drives him crazy, and she's stubborn and spiteful and a bit of a know-it-all. But when it comes down to it, she cares, and that, above all else, is why Eli keeps coming back to her. 

"You know, I never really thanked you for getting me that job at Hearst," he says. 

"Are you thanking me now?" She turns to make eye contact with him. 

"Maybe," he says, and he works to keep any sarcasm or humour out of his voice. 

"You're welcome, Weevil." 

"You can me Eli." He blurts it out without thinking. 

Veronica looks confused for a second, but then gives him a genuine smile. She shifts a few inches closer, and he lets himself lean towards her. 

"I take it your mom doesn't make it for Christmas anymore," he says after a minute. He's not sure why he says it. Veronica is prickly and usually doesn't take well to poking at her wounds. But he can tell something is bugging her, and it makes him want to do something about it. 

"No," she says. But she only sounds wistful instead of angry, and somehow that makes it sound sadder. 

"Well she's missing out on some real classy Christmas cheer." He tries to dig into that language of banter that they had somehow abandoned. 

"Beer on Christmas Eve. Maybe I really am my mother's daughter." She says it like a joke, but Weevil can tell it's not. 

"Not a chance," he insists. "I wasn't kidding—this seems like Christmas cheer to me. Good food, drinks, company." 

"Aw I always knew you liked me deep down," she teases. 

"You have to promise not to tell." He teases back. _If only she knew,_ he thinks. 

Veronica averts her attention from the TV and starts playing with the label on her beer bottle. She seems uncomfortable, and Eli feels like he should offer her some sort of vulnerability in return. 

"It's the first Christmas without my grandma," he offers. Or maybe he really wanted to say it all along, he's not sure. But it works as he watches the tension melt from her shoulders. 

"I'm sorry Eli," she says after a minute. 

He shrugs. "I'm trying to convince Claudia to have me over tomorrow, but we'll see." He says it nonchalantly, but he's pretty sure Veronica can hear the sadness in it. Suddenly, he realizes that Veronica probably knew and it hits him that _that_ might be the reason she showed up with cookies in the first place. Or maybe he just provided a welcome distraction from her own familial issues. Or maybe it could be both. 

"I take it you're not welcome at St. Mary's for Midnight Mass anymore," she says. 

Eli shakes his head and tries to not think about the number of enemies he's managed to make in this town. 

"You can also come join me and my dad," she says, and it sounds genuine. 

"V, I appreciate it, but I cannot spend Christmas with the man who has been my arresting officer multiple times," he laughs. 

"Fair enough." That makes her crack a smile. 

"But you knew all that already anyway," he says, laughter dying away. "Or at least guessed it?" 

"That my dad arrested you? Of course I did." 

"No, the other stuff. About Grandma and Claudia." It's his turn to look at her. 

"Guilty as charged?" She shrugs her shoulders and gestures with her palms out, trying to make light of it all. "I didn't know but I had a feeling," she says, more seriously. 

"And that's why you came?" Weevil's voice is quiet. There are a million emotions running through his brain and he can't make sense of any of them. 

"It wasn't a pity visit, I swear." She sits up straighter and turns to face him. Her tone level, serious, and emphatic. She pauses for a moment, and then averts her eyes and speaks more quickly. "I was just lonely and all my friends were spending the evening with family. Even Trina and Logan were doing something together for once. And I just thought..." 

"That I might be lonely too?" he cuts in. 

"Maybe?" She looks hopeful. Not hopeful about his loneliness, but hopeful that he has received her admission well. 

"The cookies were a nice touch," he says and means it. The relief is evident in her face. 

"All my best relationships were founded on the bedrock of baking." 

He cracks a smile, but he can't help but fixate on the fact that he called this thing between them 'a relationship'. Not a partnership. Not a friendship. A _relationship._ Like maybe there's room someday for it to grow into something. Usually those are the kind of thoughts that Eli doesn't let himself entertain, but it's Christmas and he figures maybe this is his Christmas miracle. Veronica is close enough now that he could put his arm around her. He hesitates, and then he throws all caution to the wind and does it. He braces for her to jerk away, but instead she lays her head on his arm. 

"Merry Christmas, Eli." 

"Merry Christmas, V." 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really interesting in writing about this period in Veronica and Eli's lives, because I think they're both having to come to terms with the fallout from the past few years, and I have feeling that they would gravitate to each other. Eli, in particular, had a huge number of changes in life and lost most of his support network. I think Veronica knows this, and subtly tries to step up. But of course, they're both prickly, stubborn creatures and I think Veronica is able to respect that about Weevil, while still trying to offer support. That's the Veronica I love, and the one I'm interested in writing. Anyway, that's all to say, I had this image of a lonely Veronica showing up on Eli's doorstep with cookies because she guesses that he'll be spending a lonely Christmas too, and it wouldn't let me go until I wrote it. Tell me what you think! Or come say hi on tumblr 


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